Quote:
Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown
No wonder the cost of a college education is so enormous today. Schools are too busy appealing to the aesthetic whims of 19 year olds and not concentrating on the important stuff: academics.
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That was a pretty naive comment, especially from a college educator...yikes! It's hard to increase the quality of your professors, students, and facilities if those prospects choose other, academically compatible institutions in more attractive locales. I know Penn State is strongly committed to maxing-out its already beautiful campus in order to retain great professors and recruit good students. The result...more students applied to Penn State last year than any other institution of higher learning in the country. (Source: I just saw Graham Spanier's
state of the university address the other day.) The first few minutes speak to the importance of a well-planned campus for all of those interested in development immediately following some introductory statistics. I was up in State College all last week and the place is booming...the infrastructure is so good that it reminded me of California, and it keeps changing big time not every year, but every quarter.
Some quotes from the video link:
"Our greatest strength is found in our common purpose…as one university committed to excellence in teaching, research, and service. This core mission has remained the same since our founding, even as our campuses have undergone an unprecedented physical transformation. We have added seven million square feet to our campuses since 1995. Even more importantly, we have rewritten some of the fundamental notions about campus planning so that each new project not only improves the physical appearance of campus, it enhances the way students live, learn, and experience campus life."
- Graham Spanier, President of Penn State
"It’s absolutely undeniable, I believe, that any curriculum is in part judged by the quality of the facility in which the curriculum is being taught. At Penn State we are preserving, adapting, and reusing our historic buildings and landscapes. We are paying equal attention to creating state-of-the-art new facilities that will take us well into the 21st century. And we are putting them together in a campus landscape, that creates a single standard and symbol of Penn State’s respect for the past, commitment to the future on a campus that is attractive and welcoming in bringing our alumni back decade after decade because it’s such a truly wonderful place to be. Faculty, staff, visitors, alumni frequently comment on how attractive the campus is, and how impressed they are with the commitment to making the campus more attractive, to make it more student centered, to make it more recognizable, to make it more memorable. I mean there is so much value in doing the right thing and doing it well."
- Gordon Turow, Director of Campus Planning and Design
"When we began our master planning process a decade ago, our goal was to develop model student-centered campuses – with a pedestrian-oriented core, sustainable buildings, open green space, and an emphasis on efficient land use. We made a commitment to preserve the historic heritage of Penn State while embracing the uniqueness of each campus. We also urgently needed to bring our facilities up to a level that could support Penn State’s $700 million research enterprise, which ranks as one of the largest in the world.
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- Graham Spanier